Touch Screen Technology

How Does a Touch screen Work?

A basic touch screen has three main components: 1 Touch sensor; 2 Controller; 3 Software driver. The touch screen is an input device, so it needs to be combined with a display and a PC or other device to make a complete touch input system.

Touch Sensor
A touch screen sensor is a clear glass panel with a touch responsive surface. The touch sensor/panel is placed over a display screen so that the responsive area of the panel covers the viewable area of the video screen. There are several different touch sensor technologies on the market today, each using a different method to detect touch input. The sensor generally has an electrical current or signal going through it and touching the screen can cause a voltage or signal change. This change is used to determine the location of the touch to the screen.

Controller
The controller connects between the touch sensor and the PC. It takes information from the touch sensor and translates it into information that PC can understand. The controller determines what type of interface/connection you will need on the PC. Controllers are available that can connect to a Serial/COM port (PC) or to a USB port. Specialized controllers are also available that work with DVD players and other devices.

Software Driver
The driver allows the touchscreen and computer to work together. It tells the computer's operating system how to interpret the touch event information that is sent from the controller. Most touch screen drivers today are a mouse-emulation type driver. This makes touching the screen as same as clicking your mouse at the same location on the screen. This allows the touchscreen to work with existing software and allows new applications to be developed without the need for touchscreen specific programming.

Touchscreen Technology

Resistive touchscreen Capacitive touchscreen Infrared touchscreen Surface acoustic wave (SAW) touchscreen Strain gauge touchscreen Optical imaging touchscreen Dispersive signal technology touchscreen

Resistive touchscreen Structure

Resistive touch screens consist of a glass or acrylic panel that is coated with electrically conductive and resistive layers made with indium tin oxide (ITO) .The thin layers are separated by invisible spacers.

4-wire resistive touchscreen

5-wire resistive touchscreen The construction of the panels are similar with 4-wire technology, but for a 5-wire touch screen all four bus bars are connected to the lower, nonflexible layer of the screen. The flexible layer is always used as a sense layer to read the voltage connection point to the bottom layer.

8-wire resistive touchscreen

Resistive touchscreen Characters:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Cost effective solutions Activated by a stylus, a finger or gloved hand Not affected by dirt, dust, water, or light 75%~85% clarify resistive layers can be damaged by a very sharp object

Projected-capacitive touchscreen Structure Projected capacitive touchscreens have front and back protective glass providing optical and strength enhancement options. Its middle layer consists of a laminated sensor grid of micro-fine wires, and optical enhancement options.

Projected-capacitive touchscreen

During a touch, capacitance forms between the finger and the sensor grid.The embedded serial controller in the touchscreen calculates touch location coordinates and transmits them to the computer for processing.

Surface-capacitive touchscreen

Structure
Surface capacitive technology consists of a uniform conductive coating on a glass panel. Electrodes around the panels edge evenly distribute a low voltage across the conductive layer, creating a uniform electric field.

Surface-capacitive touchscreen
Working principle
A human body is an electric conductor, so when you touch the screen with a finger, a slight amount of current is drawn, creating a voltage drop. The current respectively drifts to the electrodes on the four corners. Theoretically, the amount of current that drifts through the four electrodes should be proportional to the distance from the touch point to the four corners. The controller precisely calculates the proportion of the current passed through the four electrodes and figures out the X/Y coordinate of a touch point.

Capacitive touchscreen

Characters:
1. Durable and resistant to scratches for demanding applications 2. Faster and more responsive 3. Immune to surface contaminants 4. Superior optical clarity, brighter display and less surface reflection 5. Must be touched by finger, will not work with any non-conductive input

Infrared touchscreen
Infrared (IR) technology relies on the interruption of an IR light grid in front of the display screen. The touch frame contains a row of IR-light emitting diode (LEDs) and photo transistors, each mounted on two opposite sides to create a grid of invisible infrared light. The IR controller sequentially pulses the LEDs to create a grid of IR light beams. When a stylus, such as a finger, enters the grid, it obstructs the beams. One or more photo transistors from each axis detect the absence of light and transmit signals that identifies the x and y coordinates.

Infrared touchscreen

Infrared touchscreen

Characters: 1. Clear as glass, improves reading ability 2. Most durable surface

SAW touchscreen

Principle
Surface waves are readily absorbed when a soft object such as a fingertip touches the substrate. SAW Touch Screen use pure glass with transmitting and receiving piezoelectric transducers for both the X and Y axes. The touch screen controller sends an electrical signal to the transmitting transducer, which converts the signal into ultrasonic waves within the glass. When you touch the screen, you absorb a portion of the wave traveling across it. The received signal is then compared to the stored digital map, the change recognized, and a coordinate calculate.

SAW touchscreen

SAW touchscreen

1. 2. 3.
4.

Characters: Durable glass construction High optical clarity Activated by a finger, gloved hand or soft tip Not completely sealable, can be affected by large amounts of dirt, dust, and / or water in the environment

Technology Transparence

Capacitive Very good >92% Good

SAW Very good >92% Good

Infrared Very good >92% Limited due to spacing of IR sensors Potential for False activation or dead zones From Surface Contaminants Any substrate

Resistive 75%~85%

Resolution

good

Surface Contaminants /durability

Resistant to moisture and other surface contaminants

Adversely affected by moisture or Surface contaminants

Unaffected by Surface contaminants. Polyester top sheet is easily scratched Polyester top sheet, glass substrate with ITO coating up to 19" Can use any pointing device

Sensor substrate Glass with ITO Glass with ITO coating coating

Display size Touch method

8.4"-21" Human touch

10.4"-30" finger, gloved hand or soft tip

10.4"-60" Can use any pointing device

Multi-touch technology

Multi-touch denotes a set of interaction techniques which allow computer users to control graphical applications with several fingers. Products: Apple iPhone, iPod touch, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro Microsoft Surface

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